


The Consistency of Blood

by whatsun



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock - Fandom, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Case Fic, F/M, Humour, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Johnlock - Freeform, Loss, M/M, Organ Theft, Pain, Pining, Pining Sherlock, Self-Harm, Suffering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-16 19:34:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3500324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatsun/pseuds/whatsun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was times like this that he needed the steadfast reassurance that John could provide. The comfort of adrenaline, the peace in a narrowly missing bullet, the sanctuary in the blood welling from a cut. Nothing replaced the feeling of cold concrete kissing the soles of his feet as he ran, dodging pedestrians, jumping fences. But it was all void without John. He wouldn't have mattered before, if Sherlock hadn't let himself grow so attached. So sentimental.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Consistency of Blood

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, so I'm not sure I'm entirely happy with this, but it's been sat in my files for far too long without an audience, and I've come to the conclusion that I just need to let it be free.
> 
> Unbeta'd, so if you spot a mistake, please do tell me.

The morning tea sat by the deserted armchair, the steam dancing and twisting in the light above the fading red plaid  pattern of the chair. Light streamed in through the tall windows, drenching the room in the cold, clinical light of early December. The hollow sound of a melancholy violin soaked the walls, oozing heartbreak and sorrow. The dry wallpaper looked out into the room sadly, reminiscing of times long gone, when the room would be filled with sly glances and unspoken words. The bookshelves stood proudly in the corner; they at least were able to offer escape, even for a short while. The volumes themselves had been organised to the point of ritual. Every individual stood to attention, spine straight, each shelf colour-coded, with the darkest at the bottom; layers of soil in reverse.

The large table that stood for a desk was tidy, papers carefully slipped home into the embrace of files, pens and pencils lined up, waiting for their lives to be bled out onto a page. A single laptop adorned the dark wood, confident in its solitude, much like its owner. The windowsills that framed the work surface were slick with dust, but clear, leaving it to settle like grey snow over fields in winter. Between the panes, a single wire trailed up the wall, a plant reaching out to the light, or, in this case, death. The headphones that anchored the wire were perched atop a stained skull, sitting below the horns that curved upwards; the devil, reaching towards heaven.

The carpet that covered the bare planks of the floor was fading, exhausted after years of excited movement. Its delicate pattern had been worn away to a crude smudge, like a child’s clumsy drawing. Despite this, it was much loved. It was a token of sentiment, bought by one, kept by another for the intrinsic value it possessed. The rest of the room had remained much the same for the past five years, with one, vital exception. Most people would never be able to look around the room and pick out what was missing, simply because it was never a thing. It was a living, breathing, beautiful mishap of loyalty and anger and compassion and scars and unwavering determination. _It_ was a very specific, very definite man, on which trust could be placed, and to whom secrets could be bared, and one whose absence tore a hole in the very skin of the one who remained.

But this man was happy to be absent, and in the end, that’s all that mattered.  Because those who are willing to do anything for the ones they love know that they are not what they need, not what they want. And they never will be.

But the truth is he was missed, selfishly by the man he had left behind. Missed by the one person who misses nobody. Because that’s what John Watson does. He takes the most broken people, the ones everyone else has thrown away, given up as worthless, and he mends them. Puts their pieces back together again, gives them a purpose. And the thing about John Watson is he does it unknowingly. If he knew, it’s certain he would hold back, because once you fix someone, once you become their salvation; they begin to need you.

Such was the case with Sherlock Holmes. He needed John Watson, like a believer needs their god. An alternative pathway, a catalyst per say. A way to breathe. A _reason_ to breathe.

But John Watson had moved on, and in doing so, he had almost undone all the careful work he had done to fix the shattered fragments of the man he had left. Almost. Sherlock clung to what remained. He still saw him at intervals. During cases, John would occasionally reappear from the family he had so carefully constructed around himself. But that was all. And it was never for long. As soon as the shadows began to stretch, John would head for home, returning to the warm comfort of the suburbs. And there was no post-case high without John. At least, not a legal one.

And in some ways, Sherlock could never forgive John for this. For so long, he’d been content to remain emotionless, detached from society and those he came into contact with.  And now he wanted more. He wanted some form of human interaction, some form of approval, and a way to feel without meaning to. And when he did see John, everything was better, for a few, shortened hours, until he was gone, once again.

On this particular day, as the horsehair strings of the bow danced with the taut lines of the violin, Sherlock stood in the window, framed by light, casting a darkness over anything stood behind him. As is the way with Sherlock Holmes. Blocking the light. It’s what he does best. As the notes leaped and glided over and around him, Sherlock let his eyes drift shut. The light seeped through his thin eyelids, leaving greyness behind them. 

The ache that radiated through his chest was horribly familiar. It washed through him like scalding water, leaving invisible, yet no less painful scars. But nothing else would ever hurt like this. Because what can you take from a broken man?

The twisted and tortured wood of the violin screamed a tuneful melody, echoing the internal noise that reverberated inside Sherlock’s skull, deafeningly silent. As the bow lifted from the nerves of the instrument with one, final screech of symphony, tormented eyes opened, determinedly dry. Dust motes fled as he spun, blue silk dressing gown swirling around, in an impromptu cape, like the ones he used to have as a child.

Throwing the violin down on the battered black leather of his chair, with the kind of tenderness that one might afford to a misbehaving child, Sherlock moved into the kitchen. His left hand trailed behind him, across the battered surface of the light wood table, feeling the memories carved into the wood, the way lovers might carve their initials onto tree bark, a permanent thought, left for a short eternity.

Long fingers tapped out a repeating rhythm on dark slate worktops, hopping and flying over Petri dishes and discarded test tubes. Reaching for the kettle, Sherlock let his eyes flicker upwards, over the tiled wall, the small window, the patch of stain on the ceiling from the rapid decomposition of hydrogen peroxide; a simple trick, but one that had been an empty fulfillment of his need to tear apart his own headspace.

As water danced inside the kettle, Sherlock found himself twisting, resting his back on the counter as he allowed himself to survey the disruptive order he had left on the table that morning. A large conical flask rested in the centre of the table, while a test tube rack held its counterparts captive behind it. Each tube held a different solution, some brightly coloured, like the nickel sulfate, some dark, like the deep red of the iodine solution, which had left a stain on the tired corner of Sherlock’s old notebook.

The battered pages of the notebook remained open on the pages, waiting, like a trained dog told to stay. The crudely elegant scrawl of handwriting enclosed a simple sketch of the atoms in sodium thiosulfate, making it look almost like a work of effortless art.

As the kettle screeched to a conclusion, Sherlock reached behind him without looking, avoiding the thistle funnel that balanced precariously in a small beaker, to snag a mug from where he had left it earlier, after his morning tea. With the other hand, he reached for the teabags, tossing one into the cup in an echo of childhood fun.

When he poured the water onto the dried leaves, a droplet caught itself on the rim, and threw itself off the opposite side, running down the plain, beige side of the ceramic like blood runs from a wound. Sherlock let it run, watching it come to its own end as it hit the countertop. He wondered how it felt. Did the water feel freedom as it ran, only for its efforts to be thwarted? Did it know how it would damage those left behind? How they would mourn? Did it expect to be mourned? Of course not. It’s a collection of molecules, the very things that make up the earth; it felt nothing. The questions that Sherlock aimed at its watery hide were turned internally. The counter was the pavement, and the droplet was Sherlock. The liquid that remained in the cup, slowly colouring from the leaves, were those he had left, those who had, against all odds, mourned him.

Pressing the bag against the warming side of the mug, Sherlock pulled the sugar jar forward, out of alignment with the rest of the containers. Picking up a teaspoon that had been left on the counter, he loaded it with granules, heaping them in the scoop and depositing them in the stained water. A layer of translucent crystals clung to the damp metal like old chewing gum on the underside of a bus seat. Sherlock watched the light tangle in the grains, diffraction and refraction, over and around. Dipping the utensil into the dark tea, he swirled it, scraping off the excess sugar with the flow of water. Releasing it suddenly, he watched it dance, twisting in aborted pirouettes.

It took three long strides for Sherlock to reach the steel covered fridge, and another, short step the side to allow the door to swing open, revealing a bare inside. Every item was neatly put in its place, the leftover pasta Mrs Hudson had left on Tuesday on the third shelf, the milk that had accompanied it in the door. It was this that he took, moving swiftly back to the worktop, and pouring the last of it into the cup.

Having done so, Sherlock stooped to deposit the empty carton in the bin before hesitating; John always did something else first. A small wrinkle touched the space between his eyebrows as Sherlock thought back. It was something simple, menial. What was it John always said whenever Sherlock used to forget? Ah yes, wash it out, otherwise it’ll start to smell bad. So Sherlock straightened up again and stepped to the sink, putting the opening of the white bottle under the nozzle of the tap, turning the handles to allow a vicious stream of water to escape the pipes, blasting inside the plastic to create its own, private tsunami that ran in circles around the walls. Shaking the container to collect any leftover residue lining the side, Sherlock tipped the murky water down the sink, watching as it circled the drain in a slow dance before finally giving in to gravity and tumbling down into the sewers.

Having deposited the milk, Sherlock moved back into the living room, picking up his tea as he went. Leaving it carefully on the stained wooden side table by John’s chair, he bent to cradle his violin against his shoulder once more. Fingers stroked the neck softly, brushing the hairs, creating a soundless melody that resonated through Sherlock’s frame.

He had found himself playing more and more frequently these days. The music was an anchor that could both tether him and set him adrift. The instrument came alive in his hands, giving him purpose and yet as he played, the notes seemed to bleed the loneliness Sherlock was feeling. It was a feeling Sherlock had grown accustomed to in the past few years. At first he had resented it, but he soon came to realize that it was the same feeling he had felt in the playground as a child, in the pubs at university and during the first year or so of working with the Yard as an adult. Only now it was amplified, because Sherlock could recognize it in himself. He knew how companionship felt. And he missed it. Not that he would ever admit it aloud. Then again, he didn’t have to. Anyone who knew him already knew.

The sound of the front door closing dragged Sherlock out of the thoughts that devoured him each time he closed his eyes. Footsteps on the stairs, followed by the tap of an umbrella every third step meant only one thing. Sherlock sighed as the door opened noiselessly.

“Kettle’s just boiled,” he sighed, not bothering to turn.

He kept tugging on the strings of the violin as his brother moved around the kitchen, keeping an ear focused on the rustle of a teabag brushing ceramic and water churning the dry leaves, coercing the flavor from them.

“No milk?”

Sherlock didn’t bother to return what was clearly a statement. A sigh reached his ears as the door to the fridge was closed gently.

He felt rather than heard Mycroft sit behind him in John’s old chair, placing his black tea by Sherlock’s. He let his fingers wander for a few seconds longer, before moving to the desk, placing the violin in its padded black case. Something in the back of Sherlock’s mind chuckled darkly at the resemblance to a coffin, closing around his only comfort.

Turning to face his brother, Sherlock lent on the edge of the table, the rim digging into his hipbone, leaving an indentation on the scant flesh there. He raised his eyebrows, waiting, unwilling to be the first to break the gossamer silence that cocooned the flat.

Mycroft didn’t hesitate for long. “Sit,” he gestured to the chair opposite himself with an open palm. Sherlock faltered for only a second, before settling himself with strained nonchalance. The position reminded him of chastisement as a child, when he’d insulted one of the teachers or imbeciles in his class. It was clear that Mycroft was not deceived, but had the good grace to overlook it.

He looked at Sherlock for a long minute, and Sherlock looked back, both assessing the other. Sherlock didn’t like the way Mycroft’s pinstriped grey suit looked against the pattern of the chair; it was much more suited to the wool of John’s jumpers. He’d gained weight as well, the arrogant sod; happy in his new relationship. Despite himself, Sherlock felt a twinge of something that could only be described as want.

“Mummy’s invited you to dinner on Friday,” Mycroft’s tone left no doubt that Sherlock would be attending, willing or no.

“What for?” Sherlock narrowed his eyes; there was a careful composure in Mycroft’s words and posture, something that would usually be substituted for frustration.

“Is it so hard to believe that she wants to spend time with her sons?”

Sherlock cocked his head. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Mycroft sighed heavily. “You’re better at this than you used to be.”

Neither brother said anything for several heartbeats. Sherlock remained focused on his guest’s face, watching the internal debate, while the elder of the two let his eyes slide to the fireplace, retreating inside his own mind for a short while.

“Mycroft.”

“Yes, yes, okay.” He sighed again, in defeat. “Mummy… Well, she’s ill. Cancer. We don’t know how developed it is, or how treatable it’s going to be.”

Sherlock didn’t move for a moment. “What type?”

“Breast cancer.”

A long inhale through this nose and a nod. “Well, that’s probably for the best. Statistically speaking at least. It’s got the best funding and awareness campaigns.”

Mycroft said nothing, just watched as Sherlock tried to accommodate the knowledge that perhaps, just maybe, the woman who had raised him wasn’t nearly as indestructible as his childhood had allowed him to imagine.

“Sherlock… She wasn’t planning on telling you. She wanted you to - ”

“What do you mean she wasn’t going to tell me?” He cut him off angrily, “I’m not a child Mycroft. I deserve to know this sort of thing.” Sherlock could feel the anger expanding inside himself; the primitive urge to lash out, hurt whatever was closest.

“I’m fully aware of that Sherlock, but she didn’t want you to worry.”

The laugh that forced its way through Sherlock’s teeth sounded strangled to his own ears. “So she’d rather leave me ignorant to the disease that’s tearing her apart from the inside?” The metaphor was childish, but it matched the feeling of desperation rising within him.

Mycroft rose to his feet in one, coordinated movement, coming to crouch at the arm of Sherlock’s chair. “She’s not going to live forever Sherlock. Everything ends eventually.” It was the closest his voice got to soothing. The age gap had never seemed so poignant.

Sherlock closed his eyes, feeling as if everything he loved was slowly slipping from within his grasp. He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see his tea being offered to him. He took it wordlessly, choosing to ignore the presence in his flat as he stood to stand in the window.

Watching the street below proved to be grounding. The world kept rotating on its axis, the news kept reporting the financial issues with the EU, and cyclists kept getting knocked off their bikes. Nothing would ever change, ultimately.

Sherlock considered death. In that minute he thought more about death than he had done in the past year. He was disturbingly familiar with it. It was a constant in the never ending turbulence of crime. So why did the news of one more impending death affect him so drastically? He never was one to get attached.

The sound of the door closing roused him enough to turn and survey the room. Mycroft had put his cup in the sink before leaving, maintaining the order in the room.

Sherlock placed his own mug gently down on the counter before taking the short corridor to his bedroom. The armoire that stood by the open window was already cracked, exposing its inside to the room. A selection of suit jackets hung, suspended, with their corresponding trousers folded over the bar of the hanger. Absently trailing the long fingers of one pale hand across the expensive material woven to create the dark pieces that filled the wardrobe, Sherlock selected on one at random, tugging it free of its peers.

Laying it down on the bed, Sherlock shrugged of the robe of his dressing down, letting it pool like water at his feet, liquid silk. Reaching down to grasp the hem of his t-shirt, soft through years of use and wash, he pulled it over his head in one, fluid motion. He stood there, bare from the waist up and let his eyes close briefly.

It was times like this that he needed the steadfast reassurance that John could provide. The comfort of adrenaline, the peace in a narrowly missing bullet, the sanctuary in the blood welling from a cut. Nothing replaced the feeling of cold concrete kissing the soles of his feet as he ran, dodging pedestrians, jumping fences. But it was all void without John. He wouldn’t have mattered before, if Sherlock hadn’t let himself grow so attached. So sentimental.

Sighing Sherlock closed his eyes letting his toes press against the dark wood floorboards. He needed grounding. Something to hold him in place as events spun around him, wildly out of control. Control. Anything that can be controlled is good. There’s a certain safety in it, a protection from the impulsive. Whether it was preserving order in the flat, or commanding those around him, Sherlock’s need for control grew, screaming its uncertainty.

Opening his eyes to let the pale light seep in, Sherlock turned away from the wardrobe, padding towards the frosted glass door that separated the bedroom and bathroom. Once inside, Sherlock locked both doors; a force of habit, left over from when there was someone around to walk in.  Reaching into the cupboard for the steel, Sherlock caught his reflection’s eye. Pupils dilated; a direct result of the adrenaline shuddering its way through his bloodstream with each heartbeat.

The thin steel glinted happily up at him as it rested benignly in his palm, the fingertips curled towards the wrist slightly as if to protect it. Sherlock sat slowly against the bath, its cold edge digging into the vertebrae of his spine. Letting his arm rest across folded knees, he etched more tally marks into the soft skin of his inner forearm. Safety ran down his fingers, leaving carmine trails behind. Furrows in the skin marked the heartbreak of the heartless.

Fresh tally marks carved alongside the old ones, Sherlock let his head fall forward, not even noticing the salt water dripping onto fresh wounds. It was shameful, how little he was capable of handling. He couldn’t even control his own emotions any more. The one thing he had was gone, and now his whole world was crashing down around him, tearing down the walls of his mind palace, burning the prison in which he kept his heart.

Sherlock felt his body moving, could hear the sound of choked breath escaping from between parted lips, but he felt nothing. And yet, somewhere in the back of his mind he heard a voice. John’s voice. _Stop it._ But it wasn’t the broken voice that he had used before, standing at Sherlock’s grave. No, this John was angry, and it was obvious in his tone and his cut off syllables. He was letting him down. Again.

Standing slowly, Sherlock gripped the edge of the sink, meeting his refection. He lifted his chin, pulled up the façade, and gently rinsed the stained metal under the cold tap. A piece of tissue blotted the worst of the evidence and was left, discarded in the top of the litter bin.

Returning to the relative safety of his bedroom, Sherlock slipped out of his pajama trousers and tugged a pair of pants from the drawer. Drawing on a plain white shirt and tucking it into the dark suit trousers as he pulled them on was routine, something he’d been doing for years, a failsafe. As he reached into the wardrobe for the jacket however, his phone buzzed from the kitchen. Leaving the door open, Sherlock back into the kitchen, scooping up the phone with his right hand, trailing the left along the battered surface as he tapped the four digit passcode onto the screen. 

It was a message from Lestrade. A seemingly impossible murder in the victim’s own house. It took less than a second to make the decision to go. It was a distraction if nothing else, and it sounded interesting. Or at least Lestrade had phrased it so that it sounded interesting. Grabbing his jacket and shoes, Sherlock shrugged on the warmth of his Belstaff and shut the door behind him, leaving it unlocked for Mrs Hudson.

Out on the pavement, he raised a hand to hail a cab, sliding in as soon as one appeared and reciting the address Lestrade had given him. He was staring at the cabbie’s left shoulder, trying to work out who he was having an affair with, when his phone vibrated in his pocket, catching his attention.  

A simple message from John : **Lestrade said you were headed to a case on Old Ford Rd. Mind if I join? – JW.**

Despite himself, Sherlock felt a soft sigh of relief whisper past his lips. Thinking was so much easier when John was around. Christ, breathing was easier when John was around. He sent a simple reply to confirm, before carefully steering his thoughts away from the possibilities opened up by a case like this. Sherlock let his head rest on the back of the seat, watching the brickwork as the cab weaved through the streets en route to his destination.

Upon his arrival, Sherlock was gratified to find that an entire section of the street had been closed off, preventing any unsuspecting member of the public from trampling potentially damning evidence. Lestrade waited by the tape, looking exhausted already, while Donovan stood by his side, anxiously running her hand through her hair. Both looked as Sherlock stepped out of the taxi, handing the driver a twenty as he went.

Lestrade was the first to speak as Sherlock ducked under the yellow tape.

“White male, maybe mid to late forties, no identification yet. No sign of the killer either,” he spoke softly, almost reservedly, causing Sherlock to glance at him for a second.

“Alright, show me.”

With a nod, Lestrade walked towards a whitewashed house, no different from its neighbours’ in its outward appearance. Officers were clustered outside, some talking amongst themselves, others standing alone. They all paused as Sherlock passed them, their eyes following the movement of his coat as he strode into the building. Once inside the doorframe, Sherlock let his eyes roam, flicking from surface to surface, covering each wall and the floor, taking it all in, seeing patterns as he ascended the stairs.

The place was cluttered with personal items; a briefcase lounged against the arm of a battered beige sofa, paperweights held down overdue bills and shoes littered the corridor. The walls were painted maya blue, a colour that contrasted with the dirt ground into the carpet on the stairs, giving the place a slightly lopsided feel. Overall the place was unkempt and clearly hadn’t been cleaned thoroughly in many years. If anything, it smelt as though the owner of this particular rat haven was well on the way to drinking himself to fatality, even before there had been foul play.

Lestrade paused outside a nondescript pine door and nodded towards it. “In there. Fair warning – it’s gruesome.”

Sherlock quirked a smile and stepped inside, letting the door swing shut behind him. He was alone in the room, and for good reason. The smell lay over him like a thick layer of snow, creeping into his lungs with each breath, seeming to bind with the air and leave him gasping for breath. It was a scent that hung thick as treacle in the air, strangling the other senses. Breathing through his mouth, Sherlock stepped forward. It wasn’t difficult to find the source of the smell. The sickly sweet metal smell originated from the man lying face up on the bed. His arms lay relaxed at his side, legs stretched out to the end of the bed. His eyes were closed, which might have given him the appearance of merely sleeping, had it not been for the grimace that twisted his features. That and the bloodstained sheets that he lay on.

The previously white sheets were auburn with dried and drying blood. Although the body must have been lain unmoving for upwards of twelve hours, in some areas the viscous liquid still shone like fresh dew. In other parts, however, time had taken its toll and the blood had dehydrated, causing the sheets to crisp as if they had been starched.

The cause of death was clear. Bullet shot straight through the left eye socket. Precise. Possibly the perpetrator had experience. Sherlock took a second to identify the expression on the victim’s face. Not surprise – anger perhaps? Regardless, this was not the interesting part.

Aside from being stretched out on the bed in a pool of his own blood, the man had clearly been mutilated post mortem. Mutilated may have been the wrong word; if anything it was surgical, clear and careful. This was no heat of the moment decision. Whoever came in here did so with the intention to do exactly this.

A long cut ran from the underside of each collarbone to the groin, classic post-mortem incision which exposed the soft tissues underneath. In the chest cavity, the attacker had clearly used great force: the sternum had been cracked, a jagged line like two tectonic plates meeting had woven its way over the bone. This had allowed the heart and lungs to be removed with a gentle touch. The story was much the same further down the body. Each organ had been meticulously removed, without so much as disturbing the muscular walls of the abdominals (with the exception of the initial incision). Every vital organ that could possibly be profited from had been taken. Black market trade then.

The sound of the door closing, followed by an aborted retch caused Sherlock to turn. John stood at the foot of the bed, nose wrinkled in distaste. Sherlock felt his lips twitch involuntarily into a smile that was easily reciprocated by the shorter man.

“So, someone’s nicked his organs.”

Sherlock snorted. “Ever the observant one, aren’t you?”

John grinned at that. “Not my job, mate.”

Humming noncommittally, Sherlock moved closer to the bed, letting all of his focus settle on the man on the bed, knowing that no lurking attacker would get to him if his attention was diverted now. He tugged on his gloves with practised ease and immediately prodded the flap of flesh that had once been the right side of the man’s chest cavity. It flopped back into place with a sickeningly wet sound.

And then laughter interrupted Sherlock’s thoughts as John spluttered and doubled over. He lifted his head to look at Sherlock and almost cried at the expression of indignation on the detective’s face.

“Dead body lying there,” John gasped between giggles, “and what do you do? You bloody poke it. The great Sherlock Holmes just _poked_ it.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow, before moving around the bed and doing the same to the other side. John howled. It was nice to hear that laughter. It was a sound that Sherlock had sorely missed since he’d been living alone. It lightened the dingy room considerably.

As John recovered himself and went to look at the body, which now could have passed as normal, had it not been for the deflated look of its abdomen, Sherlock’s eyes flicked around, examining the room further.

The walls were painted slate grey, making the room look dark, despite the large windows in the wall facing the road, which spilt light like liquid gold onto the floor. The corners of the room were gloomy with thick cobwebs, stuck to the wall like old blu-tack. Although no spiders perched among the greyness, the evidence of their existence was left behind in old carcasses of their previous skins.

Scattered across the floor were clothes, crumpled and shying away from view. Some looked as if they hadn’t been washed in months, were practically merging into the beige carpet. What looked like it had once been Chinese takeaways rested on the dresser and bedside table, giving the impression that had it not been for the stench of human remains in the room, it would doubtless have smelt of mould and soy sauce.

Sherlock frowned. Aside from the oasis on the sheets, there was no blood in the room. No crimson stain painted the wall to indicate where the bullet had pierced the victim’s skull, no ruby handprint to suggest he fell.

Looking back at the body, Sherlock batted John’s hands out of the way, ignoring the half-hearted protest as he lifted up the head, stiff with rigor mortis. His fingers found the exit wound through the bloody, matted hair easily enough, and yet there was no mark in the mattress.

He looked up to see blue eyes meet his own.

“So he wasn’t killed here?” It was phrased as a question, but the answer was obvious enough. Sherlock nodded anyway.

“Question is; where was he killed?”

John shrugged. Sherlock looked closer at the carpet. There was a square indentation in the worn carpet, held in place by dust and dirt. Looked a bit like a box, but the edges are soft, almost blurred. A bag. Most likely a cooler to keep the organs from becoming unusable or decaying.

“John.” Sherlock nodded at the floor.

John moved to stand behind him, looking down. “Um… It’s dirty?” He looked back up at Sherlock, unsure of what he was looking for.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Yes but what else do you see?”

John frowned and crouched down to get a better view. “Looks like he put something heavy down here.”

 “Such as?” he pressed.

John hesitated only a moment, his thought process clearly written out across his expressive face. “Some sort of cooler for the organs.”

Sherlock smirked. “Exactly. Meaning whoever it was came prepared. Or had an accomplice who came later.” He paused for a second, pulling out his phone and texting Lestrade to check the CCTV. “Kitchen.” He decided, already moving and trusting John to follow, loyal soldier that he was.

Making their way downstairs, Sherlock continued to look around, cataloguing everything he saw, fitting it into order. The scratches on the lock, the collection of old shoes, the impressions of heels in the carpet just outside the kitchen. He stopped.

“Our attacker is female.”

It took a moment for John to react. “Alright. Why?”

Sherlock pointed. “The point of a heeled shoe. Either our attacker is female, or the victim is a cross dresser.” He glanced sideways at John, who grinned.

“Never know, could have been a bra or two under all that crap upstairs,” he quipped.

Sherlock sighed in mock defeat, stooping to collect a sample of the dirt surrounding the impression, before stepping into the kitchen, still able to hear John muttering to himself about ladies clothing and slobs.

The kitchen, unlike the rest of the house, was clean. Or rather, the floor and walls were. The surface were still cluttered with leftovers, but it was almost as if they had been placed later, arranged as a strange artwork. Sherlock laughed with derision.

“Care to explain what’s quite so funny?”

Sherlock turned, still smiling to the man by his side. “This room. It’s clean. The floor, the walls, even the dirty dishes have no spills. Compare that to the rest of the house.” He waited for the light to switch on in John’s eyes.

“You’re saying the murderer killed up after herself a little too well?”

Sherlock nodded. “I am. She could put the old food back, but not the dirt. I’d wager that particular work of art took years.”

John snorted at the remark. “Doesn’t look like she’s left much though.”

Sherlock shook he head, already moving around the room. “There’s always something.”

Even as he spoke, he reached a cupboard that opened to reveal several empty cleaning product bottles. He held one up, shaking it to prove his point. John rolled his eyes, turning to fetch Lestrade as Sherlock swept the containers onto the floor, checking each one. Mostly bleach, no doubt used to destroy any evidence left by the perpetrator.

An evidence bag appeared by Sherlock’s shoulder. He ignored in it favour of standing and surveying the room once more, prompting a sigh from the other detective in the room, who began depositing bottles in the bag wearily.

Checking each screw for blood was something Sherlock had learned a long time ago could prove vital, and this was no exception. It took less than a minute to find a hinge with blood caught in it. Digging out his pocket knife, Sherlock unfixed the component from the door, leaving it hanging at an odd angle. He turned to find John holding out a bag, already open. Slipping the rust coloured hinge into the clear plastic, he smiled. He’d missed this; having someone who knew what he needed, when he needed it.

John met his eyes for a second, and for a brief moment, Sherlock was sure he was about to say something.

“Right then. Best get these down to the Yard, dust them for prints. CCTV is waiting for you there too,” Lestrade spoke, breaking the silence.

Sherlock nodded, swirling out of the room.

“Bloody drama queen,” John muttered, following.

Not dignifying this with a response, Sherlock strode back towards the door, trying to ignore the way the carpet crunched slightly under his heels, sending small puffs of dust into the surrounding area.

Outside seemed dazzlingly bright after the muted tones of the cramped house, and the three men let out unconscious sighs of relief as the claustrophobia lifted. Sherlock didn’t bother addressing any of the collected officers before he ducked under the tape once again, trusting that his companion would be by his side.

They had to walk a short distance to find a cab that would take them to Scotland Yard; taxi drivers had the infuriating habit of avoiding crime scenes. Although, Sherlock supposed, John’s first case had rather proved that to be a valid idea. Unsurprisingly, it took only a few steps for John to begin his usual monologue. Sherlock played the disinterested machine, as always, while John described the oh-so-dreadful things about family life.

So come back to me, Sherlock screamed, the words echoing inside his head. Come back where you belong.

“Anyway, how’ve you been?”

Hurt. Miserable. Lonely. “Fine.”

John hummed once. “Been eating?”

No. “Yes, of course.”

John raised an eyebrow, “What does that mean? Of course? You’d forget to eat for bloody days at a time but now _of course_ you eat?”

“Oh, alright,” Sherlock rolled his eyes in the most dramatic fashion he could manage, “I eat frequently enough to sustain myself.”

Liar, lair.

“It’ll do,” the doctor chuckled.

A passing cabbie slowed down at the sight of Sherlock’s raised arm, thus relieving him of the need to further pursue the conversation. Inside the cab was warm, the heaters turned up high to combat the cool air that clung to the two passengers. The driver’s hesitation was fractional as Sherlock directed his to the Yard, clearly discomforted by the infamous men currently sat lazily in the back of his cab, watching the street with peaceful detachment.

It was perhaps because of this that Scotland Yard’s silver sign winked at them slightly earlier than either was expecting, pulling them out of their respective thoughts. Sherlock stepped out with fluid ease, mental shaking himself before John followed, not bothering to collect his change. The pair walked in synchrony through the glass doors, easily following a familiar path upstairs.

Predictably, they had beaten Lestrade back, who had no doubt hung around long enough to give further directions to the useless forensics team. In the meanwhile, officers made small talk with John, noting his absence and stealing his attention. Sherlock sat in silence and tried to quash his rising dejectedness. It took far too long for the lift door to slide open, revealing the detective inspector that they had been waiting for. Impatiently, Sherlock stood, entering Lestrade’s office before he himself had reached it. No one commented.

Inside, John winced with sympathy as Lestrade ran a weary hand over a lined face.

“You alright?” he asked, ever the doctor.

“Hmm? What was that? Yeah, yeah. Just... you know the wife.”

Sherlock frowned. “I thought you were divorcing her?”

“It’s not that simple,” John replied, as Lestrade sighed.

“Yeah. Anyway, enough of this. CCTV.” He gestured at the screen, allowing Sherlock to push past him to access the computer screen.

The image was grainy and discoloured from the weak streetlights, distorting colours into blurry smudges against dull backgrounds. The time on the bottom left corner read 23:47 as the tape started, the seconds slowly ticking past as cars flowed through the display. There were few pedestrians on the pavements, and shops were closed, steel shutters down.

“Do we have a number plate for the car?”

“Uh, yeah, somewhere.” Lestrade fumbled with the keyboard for a moment. “Here. While I remember, we also found the licence in there. George Borjo.”

Sherlock nodded absently, filtering the information. Rarely was a name of use. A licence however, could reveal habits and influences. Clicking back to the footage, Sherlock rewound the tape, searching for the right combination of numbers and letters, tuning out Lestrade and John’s mutters. There.

“Woman in the passenger seat. Any leads on her?”

“ ’friad not. We thought girlfriend maybe?”

Sherlock snorted. “With a house like that? Look at her. Stylish haircut, tight clothes, up to her eyebrow with makeup. Unlikely to have a boyfriend like that. No, I’d say prostitute was far more likely.”

Lestrade paused. “But she leaves with his car and then comes back.”

“What?”

He shrugged, “That’s what Dimmock said.”

Sherlock fast forwarded the tape, eyes flicking over the pixelated screen, until the same blue Honda drove past again, the driver clearly the woman from the passenger seat, although now she was wearing a coat. A man’s coat, no less. However, true enough, less than fifteen minutes later, the car returned, with woman still in it, and a convenience store bag on the seat.

“She left to get the bleach.”

“You sure?”

Sherlock glared at Lestrade. “Yes. Man like that? No bleach in the house. Hard to destroy evidence with water.”

Lestrade conceded the point with a tilt of his head. “So you think he was killed by a prostitute? Can I just point out that she doesn’t leave.”

Sherlock smirked. “Actually, _detective_ , I think you’ll find she does, albeit not in the same car. See here,” he pointed, allowing both Lestrade and John to crowd him, “it’s clearly the same woman, but now she’s a passenger in a black BMW. Possibly an accomplice or getaway driver.”

John frowned. “Not another client?”

“Unlikely to pick up another client right outside the previous one’s house, but I suppose it’s a possibility.”

“Right, so where do we go from here?” Asked Lestrade, exasperated.

“To the morgue.” Sherlock pushed back from the desk, crossing the room to the door in a few long strides. The others followed and they weaved through the desks of sergeants to get to the lift, pressing for the first floor. A brief minute of silence lay over the grey steel insides of the lift, the only sound the whir of mechanics that pulled the lift upwards.

When the doors slid open, it was to expose the length of corridor that lead to the mortuary. Sherlock walked it with the sense of a man greeting a dear friend, with Lestrade and John falling into step behind. The short hall was bright, the false light from the ceiling lights casting an off white glow to the plain walls and tiled floor; the three men the only dark spaces as they paced towards their destination.

The steel grey doors parted easily and without sound, allowing the figures to move into the eerily still room. The empty corpse of the recently deceased lay under a simple white sheet, almost elegant in its anonymity. For a second there was peace as the breath of three lungs was shared with the flesh of four bodies, but it fractured into pieces as Sherlock stepped forwards, gloves already being pulled into place as Molly appeared from behind the office door.

“Oh, hello,” she smiles benignly at the three men who have suddenly materialised in her workspace, “can I get you anything?”

She means do they want assistance, but of course Sherlock simply responds with an impatient demand for coffee, which then leads to both John and Lestrade shrugging and admitting it wasn’t a bad thought, leaving the tiny brunette to ferry back their beverages, whilst they turned back to the tall man and the body.

“Got anything, Sherlock?”

“Maybe,” was his only response as Sherlock moved effortlessly around the table.

As Sherlock let his mind loose from its cage, he began to see, noticing things he hadn’t whilst at the scene. Tiny pink threads under the fingernails; attempt at self defence. Remove with tweezers. Makeup smear along the underside of the jaw; romantic intent, prostitute looking even more likely. Bullet hole in the head, no bullet; still lodged in something of the victims back at the house.

“Sherlock?” John’s voice interrupted his inner monologue.

“Hmm, what?”

“They found the car.”

Well, that was interesting. “Where?”

“’Bout fifteen minutes from the scene.”

Less interesting, more foolish.  “Burnt out?”

“Kinda, started too, but I guess they didn’t use petrol or anything on it, ‘cos it didn’t catch.”

Less foolish, more downright stupid. “Well then let’s go.”

“You done here then, Sherlock?” Lestrade inquired.

“Obviously.”

Lestrade refused to take the bait. “Alright. You head down, I’ll meet you there.”

The detective and the blogger left side by side, leaving just a moment too early to see Molly stumble through the opposite door, juggling three steaming mugs.

The walk from the morgue to the roadside was uneventful, the two men falling easily into their roles, playing off one another to create the perfect synchrony that somehow deflected intrusion.

It wasn’t until a shining black cab pulled up to the curb that Sherlock broached the subject that lay heavy over his shoulders, pressing him down. “How’s Mary these days?”

“Good, really good,” and then the question was worth asking, because the ivory flash of teeth in a face that was pulled up in a smile was enough to draw out a parallel on his own face, “got some news though.”

Sherlock turned to face him as fully as the confined space in the cab would allow, letting his eyes flit over John’s comforting frame, partly hidden by the bulk of knitwear that wrapped around him in a way that Sherlock envied. He revelled briefly in the blueness of John’s eye, the simplicity of his features that somehow culminated in a being that was, in all ways extraordinary. His hair was slightly longer too, growing out of its close military style. It suited him; took the years from his forehead.

“You won’t deduce it.”

Ah, yes. Staring at ex-flatmate obsessively may possibly fall into the ‘bit not good’ set of traits that Sherlock possessed. Deduction is good. What he does best. He tries, then, but John is right (as he is unsettlingly often when it comes to Sherlock), and he can only assume that either John’s big news is that he’s having Chinese takeout for dinner, or he’s missed something.

“Not this time,” John smirks.

Not this – Oh. _Oh._ It couldn’t be – It could. It really could.

His shock must show on his face, because suddenly John is laughing and landing a soft punch on Sherlock’s arm that hurts far less than the loss of contact that follows. Sentimental.

“How far?”

“Just gone two months,” John’s happiness fills the cab like airborne ammonia, and Sherlock feels like he’s drowning in it, like he can’t get to the surface; he’s been left, abandoned in the sea. But he smiles, because this is John, and John is happy, and if John is happy then Sherlock will bear the weight of hell on his shoulders to keep it that way.

The rock of the taxi as it brakes to a stop opposite an alleyway is enough to cause the two men to look around. Sherlock tugs the door open and swings himself out, leaving the beautifully damned man behind him to pay the fare. He gulps the cold air like a parched man at an oasis, letting the current of the wind drag him out of what could have been, into what is. The feel of harsh concrete beneath the soles of well loved leather and the knowledge of the chase, being one step ahead, grounds him, tethering him to the fixed point of crime. And then there was a presence at his side, and suddenly the plethora of potentially incriminating evidence, DNA and fingerprints, was a secondary necessity.

Moving forward with his shorter shadow, Sherlock confirmed with a glance that this was the same car that he had seen in the CCTV footage, though the previously sleek paintwork had peeled back to reveal its bare components. It almost looked as if it could have been his brother’s commandeered vessel, had it not been for the cheaper upholstery interior. The evidence of an attempted fire was clear inside; black soot smudges licked over the beige roof, charcoal settled over the seats, not fully hiding the clothes that were piled there. Sherlock took a bag from his pocket, followed by a penknife. Reaching into the car he extracted the object of his focus with ease. A high heeled shoe. Probably red when bought, but now brown through wear and damage. Dirt was still visible on the point, caked around up the heel. A veritable goldmine of clues. Continuing to search the smoky dashboard and backseats yielded little, although Sherlock did find an unopened packet of cigarettes, which he pocketed.

“I need to find the source of the dirt on this,” he passed the shoe to John, who crinkled his nose in disgust.

“Bart’s?”

“Where else?”

*

The light shone off the white surfaces in the lab, where Sherlock perched in front of the microscope, fingers brushing the focus with an almost loving caress, entirely fixated with the enlarged particles that hovered, suspended like bees frozen in motion, in solution. His silent companion stood amicably by his side, scrolling absently through his phone, waiting for a signal from the taller man. When it came, they rose as a pair, soldiers once again in action.

“It has to be a warehouse. The dirt analysis suggests Islington, but I’ll have to investigate the ease with which one could use a warehouse, abandoned or not, though I assume it is in use; there are traces of blood on the fabric of the toes that hold certain qualities alike to pig’s blood.”

John nodded absently as he listened, the intelligence behind his eyes flickering as he fought to match Sherlock’s deductions. “There’s a warehouse that stores frozen meat for the local butchers, I think? It’s only small but..”

Of course. It would be so easy to hide the spoils there. Hide the tree in the forest. “Yes, that’s… Yes. Good.”

John smiled his soft smile again, and Sherlock ached with what should have been. It would have been so easy to close the distance between them, to rest his forehead against John’s and just _breathe_. Just for a while, just to let the cloak of loneliness slip from his body. But it was not his place. The right belonged to someone else.

“Shall we?” John gestured to the door.

“After you.”

*

Raindrops broke open on the concrete like mice skulls under the wheels of the beaten silver Honda Accord parked in front of the squatting, grey warehouse. Light leaked out into the shadow-drenched street, chasing the darkness out of the crevices it crouched in. The building itself was low to the ground, shorter than its surroundings and several shades greyer. Malevolence seemed to creep off the brickwork with silent continuity, steadily streaming apprehension into the chests of its observers. Depravity slipped silkily from the slanted roof, pooling on the cold paving slabs in an imperceptible reservoir of shimmering darkness. The walls seemed impregnable, as if the secrets they held existed outside jurisdiction and law.

The door creaked as it was winched open, cerulean blue in the spinning lights of the police cars that parked patiently on the curb. The inside of the building was dimly lit, leaving the shadows to become monsters in the dark. Foreboding hung like streamers from the rafters, tickling the shoulders of those who passed beneath. The building hummed with the quiet buzz of electricity and secrets, muffling the sounds of scuffing footsteps that shuffled uneasily through the door. Rows of shelves filled with iceboxes created yawning alleys within the single room, breaking up the space to something far larger.  The unsettled crowd hovered uncertainly, waiting for authority, as a pack of wolves may in a crisis.

“Well then. John, Sherlock, you take the back. Don’t care how you do it - you’ll cover more ground than us four.”

The assembly murmured its indifference to Lestrade’s statement, and then spilt like water around an obstacle. John and Sherlock walked deeper into the darkness that welcomed them with a predatory smile.

“You start from here, I’ll start from the other end?”

Sherlock nodded, already stepping away from his only companion to venture along the dark stretch, the beam of his torch sweeping across the shelving. Walk past each box, check its contents, assess as merely off cuts from a wide assortment of animals, move on. An indeterminable amount of time. Around him, Sherlock could hear the whispers of other pairs of hands repeating his motions over and over, hundreds of times over hundreds of boxes, to find the prize: human remains.

The next alley yielded to Sherlock’s scrutiny. Footsteps reverberated along the row to the right; likely an officer getting bored with the search. Sherlock dismissed it with a frustrated breath, let out between his teeth, before catching it again.

Not ten paces ahead of him, blood gathered in a sticky sweet pool, steaming in the cool temperatures of the warehouse. The body that lay on the hard floor was dark with blood, and it smeared upwards across his face from where it leaked out of the chasm of his windpipe. A valley was open between the two sides of his abdomen, split wide to expose the naked organs. His eyes were open, though they looked black in the lightlessness of the room. Lestrade and his team shouted to one other, but Sherlock heard them with deaf ears. Deductions flooded over him, and he blinked through them, seeing them through muddy water. Then, he did the only thing that made sense. He left.

He moved hurriedly through the maze that led to the fresh, cool air of outside, and raised a hand to beckon a taxi, not caring if Lestrade noticed he was gone or not. The plain back fabric upholstery on the cab seats was a balm on Sherlock’s battered mind. He closed his eyes, and thought of nothing but pain for the rest of eternity. Lights passed overhead, and the colours screamed as they flickered behind his eyelids.

The sleek black door with its golden knocker loomed up to embrace Sherlock sooner than he thought possible, and he thrust a handful of notes in the cabby’s direction, before scrabbling out of the car. He stumbled to the door, using his bodyweight to force it open. He heaved himself up the stairs using the banister to get him there, and collapsed into the place that used to be home.

Sherlock lay there on the floor, and let everything he knew pour out of his eyes in clear sadness, running over the contours of his face, to embed themselves in the grain of the wooden floor. The flat ached with a long gone presence, one that had become the very backbone of the flat. And now it was as if it had still been here, captured in the walls, ground into the fibres of the rug. But now it had been torn out, and Sherlock screamed with the loss of it, the very essence of his being bleeding out onto the floor.

His fault. His fault. Only his fault.

He had caused this. The death of the man who had healed him. He had seen him opened up, seen his bare components in the cold light of a torch, seen the perfect, expected layout of his organs, seen what had _made_ him. He had seen his last frame, had seen the position from which he would never move. He had seen the bluest eyes without life, seen them open without the knowledge and without the spark that had made Sherlock fall again and again, in so many ways.

And, in the end, he had been taken. He had died, he was no more. Like everyone else, he had ceased to exist, had become part of the billions of dead rather than the billions of living. And he made the transition with the same ease that the rest of the population. How extraordinarily ordinary after all.

* * *

 

Question: What can you take from a broken man?

Answer: The man who broke him.

* * *

 

_And if you must die, sweetheart, die knowing that your life was my life's best part._

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading :)  
> Please leave kudos or a comment if you enjoyed <3  
> You can find me at tumblr at 2-2-1-bees.


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